(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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IDALS breaks ground on water quality projects in Tama and Grundy counties • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

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Date: 2025-08

The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship is beginning construction on 18 water quality and nitrate reduction projects in Tama and Grundy counties.

The “batch and build” installation of saturated buffers and bioreactors, led by Heartland Co-op, will help to improve the Middle Cedar watershed by keeping nutrients in the fields, according to IDALS.

IDALS has worked with Heartland Co-op, based in Clive, on a number of water quality improvement projects, including two that are also under construction and two more that are being planned, with a slated construction start of 2026.

The “batch and build” model means multiple projects, in the case of the latest project 14 saturated buffers and four bioreactors, are designed and built at once rather than individually. It is more efficient and allows more water quality projects to get done at once.

Edge-of-field practices: — Saturated buffers: an area of vegetation between cropland and waterways, usually where a tile line drains, that helps absorb nutrients from water before it drains into a stream. — Bioreactors: a trench buried on the edge of a field at a tile outlet and typically filled with woodchips that allow microorganisms to remove nitrates from the water and instead release them as nitrogen gas.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said it shows how “more water quality progress” can be made, and more efficiently, when partners work together.

“We’re proud of this project and we want to keep building the momentum by adding even more farms, practices and project partners in the years ahead,” Naig said in a statement.

Naig said the Iowa Seed Association and the Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council were also partners on this project, and others targeting priority watersheds in the state. A spokesperson for the department said the construction contract, with Laser Precision, totals around $200,000.

The department recently launched another project in Beaver Creek watershed, with an estimated total cost of $1.9 million.

IDALS is providing technical support and cost-share assistance for installation of the practices. According to a release from the department, there are no out-of-pocket costs for landowners participating in the project.

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